InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 8: Vendetta ❯ Intercession ( Chapter 29 )

~~Chapter 29~~

~Intercession~

 

-=0=-

 

 

“Would you like something to drink? A cup of coffee, perhaps . . .?”

 

Kurt shook his head and stared at the old bastard, ignoring the thickly cushioned chair that Harlan had motioned to when he'd stepped into the office. Located on the third floor of the facility, Kurt had only actually been asked in there a handful of times. That he'd been invited up this time was more than enough to set little warning bells off in his head.

 

Damn it, he was tired, he was hungry, and he wanted a shower, though not necessarily in that order. Having spent the last couple days here, waiting until the snow had finally been cleared away enough to make travel possible once more, he was more than a little anxious to get the hell out of Dodge . . .

 

“Just tell me what you want,” Kurt said, blowing off the small talk since he knew damn well that there was absolutely no love loss between the two of them.

 

Harlan stood up and paced back and forth, fiddling with his left sleeve cuff, a nervous habit that Kurt knew well enough. Whatever Harlan wanted wasn't good, was it?

 

“Well, you see, we were thinking . . .”

 

Why did he get the distinct feeling that he wasn't going to like what `they' had been thinking . . .? Kurt remained silent and waited.

 

Harlan cleared his throat and shot Kurt another of those fake smiles, as though he were trying to convince Kurt that he was harmless or some such other bit of nonsense. “We'd like you to capture another demon for us—one like her . . . but male.”

 

Kurt blinked. It took a minute for the ramifications of what the doctor was requesting to sink in. `Another . . .? A male . . .? What the hell do they need anoth— . . .?' His eyes widened slightly as complete comprehension slowly dawned on him. `They want to . . .? Fu-u-u-uck . . .!' Staring at the researcher, Kurt slowly shook his head. “You want to . . . breed them.”

 

“In order to get a full understanding of them, you see, the it's necessary for us to witness and document every aspect of their natures . . . Reproduction is crucial, of course.”

 

It was on the tip of Kurt's tongue to tell Harlan that he could go straight to hell. Was the old bastard really so idiotic that he couldn't see the problems presented in that area? Even if he could get the little demon to comply, Kurt wasn't entirely convinced that any other he caught could or would cooperate, and if the two demons turned on each other . . .? Were they really willing to take that big a risk with her? After all, she was the first one that had complied with the testing thus far . . . If another demon were to become aggressive with her . . .

 

But he said nothing, simply staring at Harlan in a rather direct sort of way while giving no indication, one way or another about what should or should not be done. As far as he was concerned, there was no way in hell that he was going to do any such thing; not for Harlan, anyway.

 

Harlan must've figured out that he wasn't going to get a reply right away, and he shrugged. “Well, you think on it,” he offered, sounding much more magnanimous than he ever actually was. “We figured that we should ask you first since you were able to capture her, right? I mean, that wasn't a fluke, was it?”

 

He was deliberately trying to provoke him, and Kurt knew it. He brushed the comment aside, focusing instead on exactly what he was going to stop and pick up to eat before he headed to the apartment. Harlan really had to think that Kurt was a fool if he honestly believed that Kurt would agree. After all, even if he did go along—even if he didn't think that it was a really, really stupid idea—that'd just be shooting himself in the proverbial foot, wouldn't it? If they were able to breed them, what use would they have for him to catch them . . .?

 

“Did she . . . give you any trouble over the snow days?”

 

Kurt shrugged and turned to leave. “It was fine,” he replied tersely. “Stared at the wall kind of stupidly and didn't do a thing.”

 

He didn't miss the odd expression that passed over Harlan's features, but he didn't comment on it, either. He honestly didn't give a damn if the old bastard believed him or not. That said, though, he turned on his heel and stalked out of the office.

 

Smashing the elevator call button, only to discover that the damn thing was on the basement level, he uttered a frustrated grunt and stomped over to the enclosed stairwell. He needed to get out of there before he lost what was left of his temper, damn it . . . Breed those things . . .? Had they lost what little brainpower that they'd had?

 

`When hell freezes over . . . and maybe not even then . . .'

 

 

-OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO-

 

 

“Merry Christmas.”

 

Sesshoumaru didn't answer as Kagura slipped up beside him. In the quiet of the hotel suite, he had been looking over pages and pages of intelligence that simply wasn't getting them anywhere. It wasn't that the information they'd been able to gather was worthless, no, but it certainly wasn't actually helping them, either . . . “What are we missing, Kagura?” he murmured almost absently, his question directed more to himself than to his mate.

 

Kagura sighed and crossed the room, stepping behind her mate and rubbing his broad shoulders. “Sometimes I think that maybe we're a little too close to the situation,” she confessed just as quietly. “As though we cannot see what is right in front of us because we aren't objective enough.”

 

Sesshoumaru nodded. He'd thought as much, too. “How does one become `objective' when it involves one's own child?”

 

Kagura let out a deep breath and shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine,” she confessed.

 

“I believed we resolved this sort of trouble long, long ago . . .”

 

Kagura sighed and nodded before leaning down to kiss her mate's cheek. “I know this is hardly the time or place, but I did get you a Christmas gift,” she said, stepping to the side and perching lightly on the edge of the desk beside him as she set a small package before him. Wrapped elegantly in gold foil with a simple bit of white ribbon, it glimmered in the light filtering through the window beside them.

 

He sat back, his golden eyes lifting to stare at her for a long moment as the barest hint of a smile shone through his expression. “Is that so?”

 

She nodded again as he reached for the package. True, Christmas wasn't exactly a Japanese holiday, but with as many family members as there were who did celebrate it, Kagura and Sesshoumaru had taken to doing it, too. He tugged the end of the ribbon and let it fall onto the desk. The paper unfolded slightly since it was only held in place by the bow, and he opened the lid of the plain white box and chuckled quietly. “And what is this?” he asked as he lifted the single white feather—one of her feathers—from the carefully arranged bed of wine colored velvet.

 

Kagura smiled and took the feather from him, twirling it idly in her fingertips. “It's just something that I wanted you to have,” she replied with a delicate shrug. “Besides . . . I hardly need this these days.”

 

He took the feather back, holding it lightly as he stared at it. “I have something for you, as well,” he admitted. Standing up, he strode over to the small table near the door and picked up a neatly wrapped package out of the stack. The rest of them were simply decoration placed there by the housekeeping staff. He had hidden her gift among them.

 

She opened the gift without a word and smiled at the fine platinum necklace inside. The pendant was a simple ruby about a half inch across cut into the shape of a heart. “It's beautiful,” she told him, carefully pulling it out of the box. “Would you . . .?”

 

He took it from her as she slipped off the desk and turned around, her fingers touching it lightly as he draped it over her head and around her throat. He fastened it and let his hands fall on her shoulders as he leaned down and kissed the back of her neck. “I cannot tolerate this feeling of helplessness,” he said at length, holding her against him in an uncharacteristic show of affection.

 

Kagura sighed softly, leaning back against him, offering him her quiet support in a way that he would understand. “You're doing the best that you can, aren't you?”

 

“And that isn't nearly good enough, Kagura.”

 

“Perhaps not in your eyes, but it is all that can be expected, Sesshoumaru.”

 

He didn't like her answer, and the expression on his face said as much.

 

“Come. I think you need to stop looking at all that, just for awhile. Besides, Kagome's opened up Zelig's house in Wake Forest to cook Christmas dinner. She does not presume that everyone will join us, but they should stop by when they can.” Leading the way out of the study, Kagura let out a deep breath. “Samantha would not want us to forego the season.”

 

He nodded. As much as the idea of taking the time to sit down to a family dinner when half of that family was here and the other in Maine and back in Japan, he understood, and maybe this day was more for Samantha than it was for anyone else.

 

 

-OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO-

 

 

“I thought I'd find you in here.”

 

Kichiro didn't turn around at the sound of his mother's voice. “How's dinner?” he asked, hearing the perfunctory tone in his voice and loathing it.

 

“It'll be done soon,” she assured him. “Did you . . . did you send the emails . . .?”

 

Kichiro nodded once without turning away from the window that overlooked the immaculate snow that covered the sprawling yard of the Zeligs' Wake Forest estate. “Yeah, I . . .” he swallowed hard, blinking quickly as a hateful sheen of moisture blurred his vision. Gritting his teeth hard, he nodded again. “Yeah.”

 

Kagome let out a deep breath: not exactly a sigh, but close to it. “It was difficult, wasn't it?” she asked softly, her hand rubbing the small of his back gently.

 

“It, uh . . .” Letting his gaze fall to his hands, he closed his eyes and licked his lips but had to clear his throat before he could trust himself to speak again. “Kami . . . it felt like I was giv-giving up,” he muttered, ears flattening as he struggled to reassure himself that that wasn't the case, at all. “It's just . . . seeing it on paper like that . . .”

 

“But maybe someone, somewhere, has seen her,” Kagome said. “Maybe . . .”

 

Kichiro nodded. “That's what I . . . keep telling myself.”

 

Kagome cleared her throat. Kichiro didn't miss the tightness in the sound. “No one thinks you're giving up, you know,” she insisted, her voice all the more powerful in its husky quality. “Samantha won't give up, and you won't, either.”

 

He didn't respond to that. What was there to say? As much as he wanted to believe that she was going to come home, he started to doubt just a little as the days passed without a sign. Every morning when he got out of bed, he felt the same emptiness, only it was growing worse with every setting of the sun, too. Trying to remain optimistic was a painful thing, but to allow himself to consider the worst . . . He just wasn't able to do that, either, was he?

 

And the growing feeling that he'd somehow failed her—Samantha . . . A father was supposed to protect his children, and he . . . Kami, he hadn't done that, had he? No . . . and then he'd created those damn pills. There hadn't ever been much of a chance, to start with, had there, not without her scent to follow . . and that was because of him . . .

 

“I . . . I gave her to them,” he rasped out, his body racked by the pain of the guilt that had manifested itself in a living, breathing way. “I . . . I thought I was helping, and . . . my d-dollbaby . . . my . . . Sami . . . Kami, I . . .”

 

Kagome gasped softly as a bitter sob broke free of him, as he lifted his forearm and slumped against the window. Absently, he felt her arms around him and yet he couldn't feel them, not with his soul. The emptiness that surged through him precluded even the basest allowances of comfort. Weeks of worry, of frustration, of the strong front he'd tried to erect around himself came crashing down in a torrent of tears, in broken half-sobs that hurt . . . Kami, it hurt . . .

 

“You didn't. You didn't . . . You did no such thing,” Kagome murmured, her voice choked with her own tears. “Kichiro, don't do that to yourself . . . p-please . . .”

 

But he couldn't stop that, either. Tears born of the desire to be everything that everybody needed and the absolute frustration that he couldn't do any of those things; not one . . . Kagome cried quietly, her own tears coursing down her cheeks though she made no sound at all. Torn between the mother's innate desire to fix things for her son—her baby—and her concern over her granddaughter, she was. And Kichiro had always tried to fix things by himself, hadn't he? He'd always hated to ask for help, and even now, even in this . . .

 

The flyers they'd emailed to all the generals, the world over—Mikio's flyers that he'd made because he'd thought that there wasn't anything else he could do . . .

 

They'd decided against mass distribution to start with. Afraid that the wrong people would see them and panic, they'd left the ultimate decision to Kichiro, and maybe that, in and of itself, had been a mistake. How much more could he take, really? Twenty years of a life condensed down in hard facts and statistics with images that paled in comparison to the beauty that was Samantha . . .

 

And it seemed that the harder he cried, the worse it grew, an ugly thing that he simply couldn't contain any longer.

 

Kagome closed her eyes tight, wishing that she could help him, that she could take away the pain he was feeling, that she could somehow make it better for him, and maybe for the first time, she could truly understand what the great miko, Midoriko had tried to do for her so very, very long ago . . . She didn't want to take away his memories, no, but she wished . . . Kami, she wished . . .

 

“Oi, wench, I . . .”

 

InuYasha trailed off as he stopped just inside the doorway, his eyes widening as he intercepted Kagome's helpless plea. If Kichiro realized that his father had just walked in, he gave no indication. So wrapped up in his own regrets, his own impotence, maybe he hadn't noticed at all.

 

The hanyou stood there for a few minutes, watching as Kagome sought to comfort their son. Kichiro was winding down, it seemed, though his upset was still a palpable thing. Without a word, InuYasha finally stepped forward, grasping Kagome's arm and giving her a curt nod. She understood—she always understood, and with one last squeeze, she let go of Kichiro and quietly stepped away.

 

“You . . . you ain't done that before, have you?” InuYasha asked gruffly though not unkindly.

 

Kichiro hiccupped and shook his head, looking entirely disgusted as he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “S-sorry,” he muttered.

 

“Keh! Don't apologize—don't ever apologize—for loving your pup,” InuYasha chastised.

 

Kichiro nodded though he still couldn't meet his father's gaze.

 

Stopping beside him, he stared at the window, understanding that Kichiro didn't want him to look at him like that. InuYasha was the same way, wasn't he? Hated to show weakness . . . hated to feel that familiar insecurity that he simply wasn't good enough . . . “You . . .” he began after a moment as he felt Kagome's aura retreating. She was giving them privacy—him privacy—with his son. “You think that I never cried before?”

 

“Did you?” Kichiro asked grudgingly.

 

InuYasha didn't answer right away. Instances flashed through his head: moments in time that he simply hadn't been able to deal with, and while they might have been few and far between, he remembered every last damn tear, too. Almost losing Kagome and Miroku and Sango in the burning shrine . . . waking up to find that Kagome—stupid Kagome—had wished Kikyou back to life; that she'd left him . . . the faces of twin sons and a daughter . . . and a little boy who didn't understand why he wasn't just like everyone else . . . holding his daughter's hand as a menagerie of machines kept her alive . . . some of the most horrifying and some of the most beautiful moments of his life, and the tears that had come along with them . . .

 

“'Course I have,” he muttered. “It ain't . . . it ain't weak.” Grinding his teeth together, InuYasha cleared his throat. It'd taken him way too long to learn the lesson he was about to give his son, hadn't it? Too damn long . . . “Used to think that it meant that I was weak,” he went on, his voice tinged with regret. “Thought it meant that I wasn't tough enough to keep things inside. But that ain't it.”

 

Digging his hands into his pockets, Kichiro stared outside without seeing a damn thing.

 

InuYasha shrugged, struggling to find a way to put to words what he knew in his heart was true. “What it means . . . It means that you know what's important. Means you'll protect those things.”

 

Kichiro swallowed a few times, as though he couldn't quite find his voice, before he managed to speak again. “And . . . and if I can't?”

 

InuYasha grunted. He never had been good with words, had he? “That's why you got family.”

 

Kichiro nodded and turned toward InuYasha, his gaze saying everything that he just couldn't voice. The boy he'd never understood had grown into a man, and a damn fine man, at that. InuYasha nodded once, acknowledging the things that Kichiro didn't say—or maybe he'd said them much better than he could have with mere words.

 

 

-OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO-

 

 

“Toothpaste.”

 

The taijya didn't even glance up from the newspaper he was reading, and Samantha heaved a sigh. “Did you hear me?” she demanded.

 

“Trying not to,” he admitted as he shook the paper for added emphasis.

 

Samantha wrinkled her nose and used her claw to pick the bit of meat from between her teeth. “I ed ooth-aste,” she garbled without taking the finger out of her mouth.

 

That got his attention quickly enough. Quirking an eyebrow as he shifted a rather bored stare in her direction, he uncrossed his feet and dropped them to the floor from the top of the desk. “What was that? Demonese?”

 

She rolled her eyes but giggled as she popped her finger out of her mouth and shot him an entirely toothy grin. “I said `toothpaste',” she reiterated.

 

He snorted. “And why do you need toothpaste?”

 

She scooped up the hamburger wrapper left over from her meal and strode over to toss it away. “Let me ask you: what's the longest you've ever gone without brushing your teeth?”

 

“I don't know,” he replied as he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in the squeaky chair. “A month or two . . .”

 

“Ugh!” she grumbled, backing away slowly. “And you think I'm an animal . . .”

 

“So you brush your teeth,” he shot back. “Big hairy deal.”

 

“And your teeth have been brushed; I can tell,” she retorted. “In fact . . . Hair!”

 

He blinked, his eyebrows lifting at her strange outburst. Without another word, she separated out a single strand of her hair and tugged. Rubbing her head where the hair had been yanked out, she held up the emancipated strand, eyeing it speculatively. `Yep,' she thought with a satisfied little peal of laughter as she carted around and sped off toward the bathroom as fast as her chained ankles would allow her to go, she didn't stop until she was staring in the cloudy old mirror over the sink.

 

The lighting wasn't great in there, but it'd do. Leaning in closer, she wrapped the strand of hair around her fingers and started to floss her teeth.

 

“And just what do you think you're—yuck!” the taijya blurted as he appeared in the doorway a moment later. “You're using your hair to floss?”

 

She shifted her gaze in the mirror then giggled at the appalled look on his face before returning her attention to the task at hand. “I didn't see you volunteering to bring me any,” she explained as she adjusted her grip on the hair. “What else was I supposed to do?”

 

“Urgh . . . that's just nasty,” he complained.

 

“Then go away, and don't watch,” she said.

 

He only grunted at that, but he did turn on his heel to stomp away.

 

Samantha finished her task quickly enough then rinsed her mouth with water, wishing for the life of her that she at least had a toothbrush. Still, the makeshift floss had worked just fine, and for that she supposed she ought to be thankful.

 

When she emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later, the taijya was busy pulling her blanket out of the cage.

 

“What are you doing?” she asked, tamping down the momentary alarm at the sight of him taking her blanket.

 

He shrugged. “What's it look like, little demon? I'm changing your bedding.”

 

She snorted, more at the word `bedding' than at what he was actually doing.

 

He tossed the blanket into the canvas laundry cart nearby before heading for the hose. “Now explain to me why you're so hyper tonight,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the ruckus the power hose made.

 

She squeaked and skirted around the spray. “I got to run again today,” she stated.

 

He shot her a look out of the corner of his eye. “And that made you hyper?”

 

“I like to run,” she stated simply. “I would've run all night if they would have let me.”

 

Shaking his head, probably at her strange idea of fun, he took his time washing out the cage before turning off the hose and putting it away. “You want to run,” he stated dubiously as he wrapped the length of the hose around his hand and elbow.

 

She nodded enthusiastically. “I miss it,” she explained simply. “When I was little, I used to run with . . .” Trailing off slowly, Samantha shook her head, unsure even now whether or not she was safe enough to mention her family. In the end, though, she couldn't take that chance. The taijya didn't seem to notice her lapse, though, as he hung the hose up on the hook once more. “Anyway, it's good for you, right?”

 

He snorted. “A lot of things are `good for you'. Doesn't mean I want to do them.”

 

Wrinkling her nose, she shook her head. “But you exercise. I mean, you look like you do.”

 

He shrugged. “I walk . . . and I hunt demons.”

 

She giggled. “Maybe you should try Pilates . . . I hear they're great for getting rid of love handles . . .”

 

He spun around to glower at her. “I don't have love handles,” he growled.

 

She waved a hand dismissively as she retrieved her water dish to get a drink. “Okay,” she agreed easily enough. “You don't . . . But you know, you're really in great condition for a man your age.”

 

“W-wh-what?”

 

She took her time, carefully drinking the water. “Well, that wasn't an insult . . .”

 

“The hell it wasn't,” he grumbled, cheeks pinking slightly as his irritation surged around him. “Just how the hell old do you think I am?”

 

Setting the bowl aside, Samantha leaned back against the sink and tilted her head to the side as she considered his question. True enough, he didn't look that old, but he did have gray hair interspersed with the black hair on his head, though it all seemed to be concentrated in his sideburns. “Hmmm . . . forty . . . five?”

 

He choked. “Forty—what?”

 

“Forty-six?”

 

His scowl darkened.

 

“Forty-seven?”

 

He grunted indignantly. “Try going the other way with that, demon,” he grumbled.

 

“Oh-h-h-h . . . Um . . . forty-four?”

 

“I'm thirty-eight,” he stated. “Thirty-eight.”

 

“Really? You mean you're really not over forty?” She narrowed her eyes. “Are you sure?”

 

“Yes, I'm sure!” he bellowed then shook his head and turned away, muttering under his breath about not really expecting much better from an ill-mannered little demon who probably wasn't any older than twelve.

 

“I'm am, too, over twelve!” she insisted, her own cheeks blossoming in color.

 

He snorted but didn't respond out loud.

 

“I am!” she insisted once more.

 

“Oh? Do demons just go through puberty later or something?”

 

She blinked and stared at him, unable to grasp exactly what he was implying. “What's that mean?” she asked despite her resolve not to do any such thing.

 

The taijya shot her a rather bored look. “It means,” he said simply, “that it's obvious enough that you haven't even started to go through puberty yet.”

 

“I have, too!” she gasped.

 

“Is that right? So all female demons are flat-chested then?”

 

That barb struck home, and she couldn't help the momentary expression of hurt that filtered over her features before she could stop it. She'd always been a little self-conscious about her relatively small chest, especially when both her sisters had inherited their mother's ample bosom . . . Still, she knew damn well that she wasn't entirely flat, the jerk . . . “I will have you know that some men rather prefer smaller, perkier breasts,” she retorted haughtily, using the really lame excuse that her father had told her more than once over the years. If she then pointed out that her mother had quite generous cleavage, Kichiro always seemed to change the topic, too.

 

“Yeah,” he responded acerbically as he plopped down at the desk once more and reached for the newspaper again. “Most of them are gay . . . or they will be eventually.”

 

She wrinkled her nose and crossed her arms over her chest with a pronounced `hrumph', her ears twitching as a clear indicator that she was still irritated. “Is this your idea of retaliation for the forty-five guess?”

 

He grunted but didn't emerge from behind the newspaper.

 

Samantha narrowed her eyes then suddenly laughed. That did get his attention, though he looked like he thought she might be going mad.

 

Quite the contrary, really. She'd just had a rather comical image of his face if she told him that she was actually twenty years old flash through her mind. “I'm sorry,” she relented, waving a hand in front of her giggling face as though she were trying to stop herself from laughing.

 

“Somehow, I just don't think you are,” he muttered.

 

“No, I am,” she insisted.

 

He heaved a long, loud sigh when her giggling escalated. Pushing himself out of the chair again, he strode over to the supply cabinet and yanked out a clean blanket. “There,” he said, tossing it in her face. “Go crawl back into your hole, and leave me alone.”

 

She did as he told her to though she left her feet sticking out as a not-so-subtle reminder that he had yet to unfasten her ankles. Her laughter died down though her good humor remained. True, she hadn't meant to offend him, of course, but then, who would have figured that he'd be quite so amusing?

 

 

~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~= ~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~

A/N:

== == == == == == == == == ==

Reviewers

==========

MMorg

asgard ------ Jester08 ------ kittycatkitten ------ malitiadixie ------ Tessie_fanfic ------ Firedemon86 ------ Rawben ------ PikaMoon ------ Starr Stealer ------ OROsan0677 ------ sunshine161820 ------ bert8813 ------ Kyosama ------ DonthatemecuzImbeautiful ------ Dark Inu Fan ------ Simonkal of Inuy

==========

Forum

BobbyJustGotSheared ------ MouF ------ Firedemon86 ------ GoodyKags ------ ai_Artista ------ cutechick18 ------ PikaMoon ------ BlkbltVette ------ psycho_chick32

==========

Final Thought from Kurt:

…Forty-five …?

==========

Blanket disclaimer for this fanfic (will apply to this and all other chapters in Vendetta): I do not claim any rights to InuYasha or the characters associated with the anime/manga. Those rights belong to Rumiko Takahashi, et al. I do offer my thanks to her for creating such vivid characters for me to terrorize.

 

~Sue~